The Role of an Architect in Construction Supervision and Moiety Payments.

In hiring standard architectural services, there are seven stages, and you can get an Architect involved at any stage.

An Architect hired to supervise your building construction is stage seven in standard services.

During construction, in simple terms, he checks what the contractor is doing on your site, ensuring that the right materials are in the right mix, watches the construction budget, and construction time.

The supervising Architect does not go to your site every day. He/She is required to visit your site ONCE every MONTH.

Any other visit depends on the type of work the Contractor is doing or if the Contractor requires the Architect’s presence.

When the Contractor requests for payment for work done, the Architect checks the quality of the work and ensures the amount requested for is the same as the amount of work done on site.

If the Architect is satisfied, he/she issues a payment certificate, giving the go ahead to you, the client to make payment.
But not all the amount is paid.

Read also: The Land Buying Process in Nigeria.

Let’s say that the total amount of work done is a hundred thousand naira, the Architect tells you to withhold a five percent of the money and pay the other part.

So, you will pay ninety-five thousand naira and keep five thousand naira.

That five percent withheld is called Moiety. It’s not your money. You are not expected to spend it.

Moiety is kept for the defects liability period.

What is Defects Liability Period?

It is a time frame between the time your building is said to be completed, a clearance of occupancy is given to you by the Architect to go ahead and move into your building, you move in, from then to six months or after one rainy season.

This clearance comes in two forms; sectional completion and full completion.

Where sectional applies to a part of the building completed and ready for use and full means that construction is fully complete.

So from completion/occupancy to six months/one rainy season.

During this period, you as the client might notice a door or window handle break or the pressure in the kitchen tap is not allowing water flow well or there is an electrical fault and half of the house has no light.

Water might start dropping from the ceiling due to a hole in the roof.

These complaints are relayed to your Architect who comes in to take note of all these issues, investigates them, and compiles them to a list often called a Snag list.

The Contractor is called to make good (fix) the faults that occurred within this defects liability period.

When the faults are all corrected, the Architect issues the instruction to you the client to pay up the totality of the Moiety (all five percent), to the Contractor.

This moeity is held back to ensure that the Contractor comes back to fix any faults.

In a case where the Contractor refuses to come and fix the faults, the moeity can be used to recruit another local contractor to fix the faults.

This ensures your building budget does not exceed your projections enough to cause a scare.

But you cannot get this service unless you are working with a professional, such as a Supervising Architect.

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